George Hamilton

But I was at many venues in Spain, I was in Seville, I was in Malaga, I was in Madrid, I was at Atletico Madrid where Northern Ireland played, I was in the Bernabeu, you know, and I was in Barcelona.

I did the third and fourth place playoff in Barcelona.

So, you know, it was experiencing the whole of the Spanish

football experience.

Global Spain, so to speak.

It was different.

It was very, very different.

I really felt I was at the World Cup when I went to Spain.

I was certainly far too early on to be complaining and I didn't find it in any way as... It wasn't as relentless then with the 24 teams as it ultimately became with the 32.

But I didn't have that feeling.

And in fairness, I was part of a big team.

So I wasn't... Journalists, you know, the written press tend to be on their own and tend to be having to flit from one to the other because they're covering...

virtually the whole thing I mean just as I've said I was covering Scotland and then when Scotland were out I was covering Northern Ireland and then I was kind of assigned and I had a week off before the third and fourth place match because there weren't matches for me so the relentlessness factor did not kick in to any extent really for me

Did you stay for the entirety of the tournament?

I was home in Wimbledon where we lived at the time for the final.

It was one of those kind of pinch-me moments where I'm sitting in front of the television and I was on my own because I'd been away so my wife was back home with her family in Dublin.

Did she get sent home?

She got sent home, yeah.

She got sent home.

No, no, no.